Texas Books

People ought not only to read these sorts of books more often, but to write them. Birdsong is the sort of character-driven novel you'd expect from Walker Percy, in which characters, during the course of a day or a week, discover their freedom, realize the influence of others in their lives, the motivation behind that influence, and whether or not it has a right to be there. Dewey confronts each aspect of his past, vaguely aware that he is in a rare introspective moment that will allow him to separate his past from his present, and ultimately, choose his future.

The novel is set in 1958 before the drug, etc. scene. So the characters are valid to the period. A wonderful novel.

A very fascinating read. As a classic movie fan, I enjoyed reading about the existence of these films. The photographs and lobby cards provide a sneak peek into a historical time.

IN THE READING OF THIS BOOK I FOUND THAT IT GAVE A CLOSE SUMMARY OF THE BLACK MOVIE INDUSTRY,AS IT,WAS, AS NEW AS A BABY BOTTOM COMING INTO THE WORLD. FROM DAY ONE,I WISH THERE WERE MORE BOOKS OF THIS NATURE IN THE LOCAL LIBRARY,IN DOWNTOWN WHITE AMERICA, JANEEN CURRY

The author deals with the presence of the Pantex plant in Amarillo, the only final assembly factory for nuclear weapons, warheads and bombs, in the US, and the attitudes of residents toward the plant. She analyzes in some detail the personal and group philosophies of war, peace, safety, and the future.

She analyzes the concepts of safety in the views of residents, both the security provided by the bomb as a deterrent and the danger of the bomb as a provocation to nuclear war or to an attack on their town as a production center. Fascinating is her analysis of the religious views accommodating, or in a few cases opposing, the presence of nuclear weapons, and the future in light of their possible use.

She explores the various religious views of the End Time of churches in Amarillo. She gives attention to the views and attitudes of individual members of churches who work in the bomb factory.

I first read this book in college in a theory of religion class. But don't be put off by that. This is the story of the people in Amarillo TX who build nuclear warheads. Most of the community are born-again Christians who are Rapturists -- they welcome the end of the world. Their story is contrasted with those people in the town and all over who are against nuclear war. It is an unbelievable sociological tale, and Mojtabai writes with compelling impartiality. She tells the whole story in a way that reads like one of the best novels I have ever read. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in human nature. It will blow you away.

This warm tale is a pleasure to read! Lacy is an idealist with decidedly proper principles on how one should live their life and she is out to change the immoral goings on in BLISSFUL, TEXAS! One of the recipients on her list is the very handsome barkeep, Lucas Burns. Lucas has his own ideas about her civilizing influences and he sets out to reform the prissy Lacy.

This fun tale is quick and easy read.

Nineteen year old Lacy Calhoun leaves her convent school to return to mama and Blissful, Texas.

On the stagecoach she runs into 29 year old Lucas Burns who happens to run the saloon, The Rooster.

Boy did things heat up when Lucas learned that Lacy was the daughter of Flossie Calhoun, owner of the Satin Slipper.

He was under the impression that Lacy was not as innocent as she appeared and Lacy thought that Lucas, with his saloon, was the downfall of all of Blissful's good men.

The good men of Blissful, [didn't meet too many] gathered in The Rooster to decide how to get rid of the do-gooder, Lacy.
She was ruining their business, fun and relaxation with Boot Withers the most out-spoken.

Ah, you have to follow the hilarious high-jinx of the people of Blissful, with Myrtle and her sister-in-law, Birdie.

With Lila gone, with the other girls, the sheriff comes acourting, thinking that his ma would approve of Lacy but.....

Lacy figures that it is up to her to bring about a higher moral standard for the good people of Blissful. And she had to take Jacob, Lucas's son under her wing. He needed a real home.

Then Lucas teaches her that she can become one of the fallen and her ideas slowly grow and mature.

The characters are great, the evolving of Lacy into a more mature woman is hilarious and touching as she finds out that no one is as bad as they seem nor was she as good as she thought.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED -M Exceedingly delightful - great reading.

White, the military history is fascinating, the truly gripping parts of this book are about his life before and after the war.

It cannot be stressed enough that there was a time when a person could not attend any school or pursue any academic program they wanted just because of the color of their skin. (To correct the previous reviewer, Owens earned his PhD from The Ohio State University . . . there is no "University of Ohio.")

Late in World War II, a severe shortage of combat troops forced the United States Army to rescind its policy of racial segregation. They began assigning African American army units to combat duty. Until then, these soldiers had been relegated to such thankless tasks as burial detail, supply transport, mess hall staffing, and longshoreman work. This change, author Emiel Owens contends, played a significant role in spurring the civil rights movement twenty years later.

The son of a Smithville farmhand, truck driver and jack-of-all-trades, Owens excelled in school and graduated at the top of his high school class. He was serving in an ROTC unit at Prairie View A&M when the United States entered the war in 1941. In the spring of 1943, Owens was thirty-four credit hours from a horticulture degree when his unit was ordered to report to Fort Sam Houston. There they began training on the 155-mm "Long Tom," an artillery gun used by the newly formed 777th Field Artillery, an African American Battalion that fought in major battles in western Europe, from the Hurtgen Forest to the Ruer Valley and over the Rhine.

At the outset of the Rhineland campaign, Owens' gun battery was called upon to fire the opening salvos across the river. The five thousand guns of XVI Corps followed in unison, firing for three hours in preparation for Operation Flash Point, the crossing of the Rhine. "The fire was deafening, and the earth shook ... and gave the impression that hell itself had come ...."

There are many stirring battle scenes and acute observations of war in this book. Owens has a knack for detail, describing the Siegfried Line and the human-made fortifications: Hitler's "dragon teeth" and the hundreds of pill boxes situated with overlapping fields of fire. He also manages to see Texas in the the black furrowed fields and long green valleys his units passes through. They looked "as if they had been plucked from around the Hill Country back home in Central Texas and just relocated to this spot." But there is also an undercurrent of racial injustice glimmering just beneath the surface of the narrative. Sometimes it's seen in a trifling way: the curious stares from Europeans unused to black faces. But other times it's insidious: the army's policy of breaking up African American combat units overseas rather than back in the States, with a result that no homecoming African American troops received a ticker-tape parade down Broadway.

Owens returned to Smithville a decorated veteran. With the help of the GI Bill, he went back to Prairie View A&M, got his degree, and went on to to graduate work at the University of Ohio. He ended his academic career as Professor of Finance at the University of Houston. His story is a uniquely engaging one, giving a view of the social history of an African American soldier in combat, as well as providing noteworthy battlefield accounts of some of the more formidable World War II campaigns.

Today we hear so called "immigrant rights" groups claiming Texas was stolen land from Mexico and spews out their racist agenda saying all whites should be out of the territory. But this book rebutts their claim by proving that
Mr. Austin, founding father of the Texas, was a loyal citizen of Mexico and did not want to Texas to be part of United States.
This book also points out that it was Senor Santa Ana who did not respect both freedom -loving Mexicanos and Anglos, broke out the war, and later caused his downfall. I recommend this book to anyone regardless of their heritage who would seek real truth behind American history.

Like many people, I was given the ration of bull about how the Mexican War (1846-1848) was just an example of the US picking on a poor, defenseless nation. This book, though, sets the record straight. Even though it is a small tome, it packs a wallop in both information and logic. It lays out the case that Texas was as independent from Mexico as Mexico was from Spain and that Texas was as free to do with its freedom whatever it wanted to including joining the US. It lays out the case that the Texas border was at the Rio Grande, not the Neuces. It lays out a particularly devestating case that shows Mexican saber-rattling. I urge everyone who has the slightest bit of interest in that time period to read this book.

A friend recommended this book as I've been reading a lot about Sarah, Duchess of York, and I was interested in Steve Wyatt's background.

The author writes in an easy style as she tells the history of these families who are a large part of Texas history. I had not heard much about any of them. Texas folks probably would like to read about them, but I found them boring. I've given it five stars for her writing.

There are some interesting things about how retail stores have changed over the years and how customer service has deteriorated.

I think that only Texans would be interested in the parts about oil and gas companies.

amazon came through for me by finding this out of print book, and it only took them 3 days to find it. i am an admirer of lynn wyatts and was a loyal customer to the sakowitz store. this book shows us inside two very powerful families and reminds us that money is thicker than blood. i recommend this book to anyone into the social scene. thanks amazon for finding this for me.

This is a great history of a family ice cream business that expanded beyond the bounds of its original county and state of Texas. The developments of new flavors and stories make it a fun coffee table pictorial and a must for any Native Texan.

In the late 1980s, my family moved to Brenham where we lived for three years. Blue Bell Ice Cream was just beginning its tremendous expansion through Texas at that time, and we were excited to be moving to Blue Bell country. As we quickly found out, Blue Bell ice cream defines Brenham. Whenever the Creamery comes out with a new flavor, it makes the front page banner headline of the local newspaper. And in Brenham you can get ALL the flavors, many that you've never even heard of before.

The schools serve hand-dipped Blue Bell in their cafeterias. So do all the restaurants, and even some of the gas stations. To us, it seemed there were buckets of hand-dipped Blue Bell just about anywhere we looked. We once counted 28 places that served hand-scooped Blue Bell in Brenham, which at that time had a population of only 12,000. And then one day, during a rainy football game, as we sat in the high school stadium right across the street from the Creamery, out came a rainbow and arched right into the top of the Blue Bell factory.

This year, Blue Bell Ice Cream celebrates 100 years of production, with a handsome picture book in commemoration. It is filled with gorgeous color and black-and-white photographs, but also laden with historic ads, some extraordinary engineering information, and lots of just plain gee-whiz facts, the kind that will be so much fun to tell other Blue Bell Ice Cream fans.

For instance, in 1907, the ice cream was made in hand-cranked freezers just like your grandma's. On a good day they could coax out almost two whole gallons. Then delivery boys would hitch up a horse and buggy and rush the ice cream to nearby families where they ate quickly, before it melted!

Even up into the 1940s, ice cream sandwiches were made by hand slicing slabs from a 64-ounce ice cream block, and fixing the slab between two chocolate wafers. Automation came later, in the late 60s, but by 2006, Blue Bell had expanded from the single little creamery in Brenham, Texas into sixteen states, with forty-four creameries churning out Homemade Vanilla, Buttered Pecan, Cookies `n Cream, and Moo-liennium Crunch.

Also included in the book are some of the flavors that didn't make it, like Jelly Terror, Dill Pickles `n Cream, and Licorice which turned a consumer's mouth black. At the end of the book are letters from people, mostly funny letters, most requesting that Blue Bell hurry to their towns.

There used to an Apple Tree store on Market Street in Brenham. On weekends they often had demonstrators handing out samples. One Saturday, a lady was offering tastes of a startup ice cream brand from the Valley. She gave her pitch to everyone who walked by her table. People were polite, but they were also declining, and by the time we arrived, the poor lady was desperate. My younger son, feeling sorry for her, went over to take one of the small cups of melting vanilla. She watched gratefully as he ate the single scoop in one bite. He shook his head at her, and with pity, said, "Lady, this is Blue Bell country."

"I know," she answered. I can still hear the surrender in her voice.

Blue Bell has a lively web site: [...]. Go there to find out about the factory tours, (a terrific idea for Spring Break), to enter flavor-naming contests, and to learn all about the 100-Year Celebration planned for June 19-12 in Brenham.

Lori Copeland did it again!! Bluebonnet Belle is a great romance. I couldn't put it down.

Precious story. I loved each character. I highly recommend this book to all my friends.

This is a great book for anyone interested in the cattle business, Texas history, or the politics of big business in the middle of this century. One need not be a rancher or cattleman to enjoy this book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone from any background.

If you have an interest in the King Ranch, you should read this book.